Extracting and processing food Flashcards
What is feeding composed of?
processing, capture and subjugation
What is extractive foraging?
Parker & Gibson 1977
- Food protected e.g termites in nest, nuts in shell
- Higher cognitive abilities needed to extract food
Define tool use
The external employment of an unattached or manipulable attached environmental object to alter more efficiently the form, position or condition of another object
What is adaptive specialisation?
Traits which are tailored to the current ecological niche occupied by a species (local and according to best fit)
What adaptations do new caledonian crows show for tool use?
morphological: different beak and vision which is more fronted
behavioural: spontaneous tool use
cognitive: better memory
Define problem solving
Overcoming an obstacle to achieve a goal when the solution is neither in the species-typical repetoire nor socially learned
What is reasoning?
Combining percieved with imagined events or associating spacio-temporally separate events
What is planning?
The cognitive process implicated in the formulation,
evaluation and selection of a sequence of thoughts
and/or actions to achieve a desired goal
note: one of the executive functions
What brain areas are associated with planning?
- associated with PFC activity (mid-dorsolateral frontal cortex
- Injury of the cortico-striatal pathway disrupts planning abilities
What is innovation?
The invention of a new behavior pattern or the modification of a previously learned one in a novel context
What is functional fixedness?
Blockage that occurs in a problem solving situation due to existing function of some of the elements of the task
What is the correlation between brain size, social learning and innovation?
Positive correlation
